Omega Days (Volume 1) - By John L. Campbell Page 0,1

that he would actually help her son, and he felt like a fraud. Voices in Spanish came from the other room, one soft and the other sharp, angry. Then a fourteen-year-old boy slouched into the room, head down with his hands in his pockets, being prodded along by his mother. He dropped into an armchair across from the priest, crossed his arms and looked away. Mrs. Robles stood in the kitchen doorway, nervously smoothing her uniform apron.

“Hey, Chico.” Xavier used the boy’s nickname. “I haven’t seen you around the center for a while. You don’t like boxing anymore?”

A shrug.

“You should come by Saturday night. The fight’s on pay-per-view, and we’re all going to order pizza and hang out.” No reply. “Your friends miss you.”

“They’re not my friends. Just a bunch of losers.”

“You’ve got some new friends now, huh?”

Chico crossed his arms tighter, still not looking at the priest.

“Is that where this came from?” Xavier gestured at the lump under the dish towel. “Want to talk about it?”

The boy glanced at the table. “Not really.”

Xavier looked at the boy, a skinny adolescent in need of a haircut, trying desperately to grow a mustache. He wore baggy jeans and a long sleeve, plaid flannel shirt buttoned to the neck and down to the wrists. Some styles never changed. The priest noticed that his left sleeve was dark and reddish just below the elbow.

“What happened to your arm?”

Another shrug.

“Roll up your sleeve for me, Chico.”

He hesitated, then unbuttoned the cuff and slid the flannel up past his elbow, wincing. A blood-soaked bandage was wrapped around his arm, and at the sight of it his mother gasped and crossed herself.

“What happened?” asked Xavier.

“I was coming home from school.” He looked at his mother and curled his lip. “I did go today, I wasn’t lying. I cut through an alley and got jumped by a homeless guy. Crazy fu… guy bit me.”

Xavier saw that the boy was sweating. “Take a ride with me to the ER, Chico. We’ll get it looked at, just to be-”

The apartment door crashed open, wood splinters flying, banging hard into the wall and smashing the glass frame of Jesus ministering to children. Two men rushed in, not much older than Chico. One was bigger, his head shaved bald, the other more stocky with slicked back hair. Both had ‘690K’ tattooed in small black characters at the corners of their left eyes, and both held black automatics at arm’s length, turned sideways.

Mrs. Robles screamed and moved towards her son, but Slicked Back pistol whipped her across the face, sending her to the floor. Xavier started off the couch, but the gangbanger turned the automatic on him. “Sit the fuck down!”

Chico Robles swore and charged them, but the bald one punched him hard in the side of the head, knocking him to his knees. He straddled the fallen boy from behind and took a fistful of his hair, jerking his head back.

“So you a little bitch, huh?”

Chico cried out as Baldy twisted his hair.

“You was supposed to meet Chato, let him watch you do someone, show me you had balls. That was two days ago.”

“I was gonna do it, I swear!”

“Yeah, sure you was.” Another jerk of the hair, another cry. “You pussied out like a little bitch.”

“Do him, Perro!” Chato yelled, keeping his pistol pointed at the priest.

Baldy – Perro – shoved his own gun against the back of Chico’s head. “Ain't gonna be no bitches in my set.”

Xavier held up his hands. “Wait. Take a second, Perro, think about it.”

The gangbanger looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Bitch, no one gave you permission to use my name.”

“Yeah,” said Chato, taking a step closer, prodding the air with his pistol.

“He’s just a kid, man,” said Xavier, glancing at Chato’s gun. The opening of the barrel looked big enough for a train to come out of it. “You made your point, he’s not good enough for you. Why not split?”

“Shut up, Padre,” snarled Perro. He gave Chico’s head a rough shake and leaned in close to the boy’s ear. “After you I’m gonna do the priest, and then your mama. Me and Chato both gonna fuck her first, though.”

“Yeah, yeah!” yelled Chato. “Do him, Perro, do him!”

Perro clicked back the hammer of the automatic. “Goodnight, bitch.”

An all too familiar rage boiled inside the priest, and Xavier did nothing to hold it back. His hand shot out, snatching the revolver out of the dish towel. It came up quickly and he pulled